Creepy Crawley (and Evil Evans)

Today was one of those rare days when we were joined by Howard - only his second home game of the season and worryingly he has yet to see a Darlo win.

After a nice breakfast at Da Vinci, we had a decent journey north - Howard and I chatting as Martin trawls through his pile of papers to work out his pool selections (but as ever, no winners today. As ever.).

After leaving Martin at Bank Top, we wander to the Quaker to find Waters pere et fils are already in attendance. And both are well dressed by normal match-day standards as Tony has a box for today's game against table-topping Crawley.

Both of us paid £20 at the start of the season to enter the season ticket holders draw to win a box for a game and during last week’s game against Tamworth, Tony was announced as the latest winner. A pretty good idea by the club and fingers crossed I'll also be a winner before the end of the season.

(left) You've got to hand it to Tony and Howard...

On the bar today in the Quaker we have Hambleton Stud, RCH Steam Carnival, Saltaire Cheeky Kriek, Banks & Taylor Dragon Slayer, Hadrian & Border Newcastle Pioneer, Jarrow Caulker, North Yorkshire Crystal Tips, Mordue Newcastle Porter and Titanic Lifeboat.

I manage to try all of them - halves of course - except for the Stud and Dragon Slayer and for me the Newcastle Porter and Cheeky Kriek were excellent. The latter especially had a nice sour edge as well as some sweetness and was not as sugary as I'd suspected it would be.

John W, John B, Brian and Trevor joined us to make up the numbers before Howard, having had his regulation couple of pints, departed to pop into Taylors for pies.

We popped up to N22 for a few beers and then taxi-ed a little earlier than usual down to the ground so everyone could spend a bit of quality time in the box before kick-off. Not for me though as it was pitchside duties as usual.

Today's opponents Crawley Town have hogged most of the non-league headlines this season as their Project Promotion has seen them spending big bucks in order to sign some of the big name players at this level.

As if that wasn't enough reason to dislike them instantly, they're also managed by that nasty piece of work, Steve Evans, who narrowly avoided a jail sentence after helping Boston United cheat the taxman out of £250,000.

(left) Brian, Trevor and John riding the heskeylater to Heaven

Cheats do prosper though and this was enough to see Boston promoted much to the disgust of promotion rivals Dagenham & Redbridge - not to mention most right-minded followers of the game.

The fact that he was never banned from football management is worrying but not surprising as the football authorities never seem to grasp the nettle when firm action is needed and examples need to be set.

From the kick-off it was difficult to see which team were the big-spenders as Darlo more than matched Crawley and went at them with a positive attitude.

This approach was rewarded after 21 mins when Bridge-Wilkinson hit a half-volley in the box and the ball beat keeper Kuipers. This soon got Steve Evans off his backside and shouting at his players (not that he ever seems to need an excuse).

Crawley then had a goal disallowed as striker Brodie was off-side but it wasn't long after that until they equalised - Hatch had an odd-lapse allowing Brodie to shot. Russell saved but could only parry it to Neilson who couldn't miss with a simple tap-in.

As half-time approached Brodie and Darlo defender Brown chased a loose ball when they both collided and Brodie went sprawling. It wasn't a surprise to see the red card as the referee had been making dodgy decisions all day.

(left) The ref refuses to listen to Hone's protests following the sending off

From my view it looked as if Brodie was looking to be clipped as far too many strikers do - I also thought he had a bloody cheek to hound Brown as he traipsed off. Truly playing in the spirit of his manager.

The decision certainly got the home crowd riled and when the ref wasn't on the end of their venom, Evans was. A true pantomime villain but sadly not funny.

Not surprisingly the second half was more about preserving the lead - Gray and Main replaced Senior and Louis with a view to holding the ball up front but it never worked. Main rarely won a header or kept possession and balls hoofed up front by Russell were soon returned. This meant the defence were under pressure for virtually the entire half but they held firm and Crawley rarely went close to scoring a winner.

There were loud calls for a pull on Josh Gray but it was the wrong side of the penalty box for me to get a clear view. Predictably the referee was unmoved.

There was a huge cheer when the final whistle blew and quite rightly – the team did very well to play the entire half with ten men against supposedly the best side in the division. Evans was clearly not happy and went off to a chorus of abuse but I’m sure that the norm for him.

(left) Dryden suspects two fingers are enough for Evans

Under the circumstances it was a very pleasing result and it was a happy bunch of Capital Quakers that made their way south. On the way I received a text from Steve to say he was unexpectedly in north London with time on his hands.

And so it was on our return, I made my way to the Euston Tap where Steve was waiting to buy me a drink. Liz and Jenny then joined us after getting back from their home game.

My chum Paul, photographer at Wycombe, popped in a little later as we’ve been meaning to meet up this season but this was the first chance we’ve had. It was good to see him and find out what’s happening there these days.

The Tap was a little busier than last weekend so obviously word is getting round...